Problem

Over the past six years, Creative Commons (CC) has removed nearly every reference to the definition of Free Cultural Works. This is at odds with requests and wishes from the community, dating back all the way to 2006, when the definition was first published. This issue proposes to reinstate previous measures:

• CC Legal Tools
  • add green and yellow background graphics again to license deeds
  • add seal image / non-free indication image to license deeds, along with a corresponding statement and a link to more information
• Chooser
  • Add Free Cultural Work indication to licenses chooser#194
• WordPress content
  • describe difference between free and non-free when introducing CC's eight legal tools: About CC Licenses - Creative Commons
    Example

    • example
    • as in the example, provide a link to more information
  • edit the page Technology Platforms to detail free license choices (and add a link to the explainer page on free cultural works)
    Example

    • "Current situation is that messaging on the Creative Commons website and communication from CC in general does not provide useful examples of which licenses are used in various contexts and domains. A current tension is that on the one hand Creative Commons promotes individual choice so that licensors can adopt the CC license that they feel is most appropriate to their needs. On the other hand, there is a call for CC to more proactively guide the decision-making process (by providing useful information and assistance) and encourage more open licensing (Free licenses) in certain situations, such as for publicly funded scientific research and educational materials." (source)
    • example of how this could look
  • add link to explanation page on free cultural works from page on public domain

Note that all of the points above already existed at some point, but have been gradually removed. In addition, the statement of intent can be put on CC's website and the CC Platform Toolkit could mention Free Culture:

• WordPress content
  • put CC's statement of intent on the website and prominently link to it: CC Attribution-ShareAlike Intent - Creative Commons
• CC Platform Toolkit
  • mention the possibility to emphasize Free Culture Licenses in the section on the chooser

Of course, it would be great if CC would also adopt the spirit of free cultural works (again), in communications on social media, blogs, or with partners.

Description

The definition of Free Cultural Works (FCW) discerns works that are part of a global commons and, as such, "can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose" (freedomdefined.org). Numerous essays have established why the NonCommercial (NC) and NoDerivatives (ND) modules are inappropriate choices for a free culture¹²³⁴⁵⁶ and multiple joint statements have been issued on that subject. In line with that reasoning, in 2006, license deeds signaled the FCW-free status with a green or yellow background color:

Around that time, Wikimedia was discussing switching from the GNU Free Documentation License to CC BY-SA 3.0, and...

"clear marking of qualifying CC licenses as free [was] one of the issues to be addressed for a potential migration of Wikipedia to CC Attribution-ShareAlike".

--- mike, 2008

Consequently, in 2008, CC has opted to use a seal to differentiate FCW-free CC licenses from non-free ones on the license deed:

In 2012, the chooser followed suit by also showing the seal:

It also indicated licenses that are non-free:

All these efforts by CC were deliberately brought up for consideration when the Wikipedia community made the decision to adopt CC BY-SA 3.0.

When v4.0 of the license suite was in the making, people were discussing removing the NC module or at least...

Explicitly state that NC licences are non-free, non-libre and non-open licences

--- NC Proposal No. 6

The discussion on this topic has been lively and was reflected in multiple blog posts (resulting action items here). And while the NC module was kept, it was indeed decided that (emphasis added)...

CC will be improving messaging and information around the use and meaning of NC, including making greater distinction between the openness of the licenses with and without the NC and ND conditions.

--- NC Proposal No. 6

And, indeed, the "Licensing considerations" gained a section on free and non-free licenses:

Another change was the creation of an additional page, featuring "descriptive examples of adopters of both Free and non-free licenses".

From there on, things went backwards:

• Starting in 2016, the examples from above got hidden away and were gradually defused
• In 2018, the background color from the deed as a distinctive signal was removed and the seal was gray-scaled (but the change was not explained)
• In 2020, the new section on free and non-free licenses got removed again.
• When the new license chooser was developed in 2020, it was decided to remove the seal, instead just adding a small note on free cultural works.
• In early 2023, the small note was also dropped from the license chooser.
• In September 2023, the seal was entirely removed from the license deed (without explanation) and the link to the explainer "Understanding Free Cultural Works" (previously located here) has been removed

As of now, I believe no link is left to your explainer "Understanding Free Cultural Works" and it would only be consistent to remove that page. Except, it would be entirely at odds with the trust the community has put in CC, as various community processes have shown that the difference matters to a significant part of the community.

Please restore the various signs and indication of what makes a free cultural work on your website. Taking you by your words:

Here’s what you can expect from CC:

• Please continue to use the CC-Community list (as opposed to the CC license development list) as the venue for discussions about the various options, proposals, and considerations for NC and ND.
• CC will collect, analyze and synthesize ideas and proposals, identify possible policy changes, and communicate potential implications of each. CC will look to these various proposals with the recognition that any policy change cuts across the entire community and organization, including education, data and science, legal, technical, etc. CC will share this information publicly in an easy to understand fashion that includes the relevant historical and contextual framing.
• CC will hold stakeholder consultations that include adopters, CC affiliates, funders, and the broader community. These might take the form of email discussions, community phone calls or IRC chats, etc.

--- Ongoing discussions: NonCommercial and NoDerivatives

Please consider this such a proposal, though not over the indicated means as I could not identify any mailing list where it could be discussed on.

And while you're at it, why not give CC's statement of intent a proper place on the website as well, instead of having it lurking on the wiki, where you seem to slowly detransition from anyways.

Also, if you think this is not the right place, I'd be happy to be redirected to more appropriate ones.

Alternatives

Be transparent about the apparent change in direction and about the exact reason why all of these things have been rolled back.

Implementation

• I would be interested in implementing this feature.